While the origin of this quake was much further north, McCarthy describes a somewhat active Trent-Severn line between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario that can affect this area with small shakes.

“There we sometimes have epicentres of earthquakes that are not associated with (continental fault zones) like in B.C. or Japan,” she said. “But here, they are just the earth shifting, stretching, reorganizing itself.

She said a powerful magnitude 8 or 9 quake is a non-starter in this area — certainly not in a lifetime. “But we will be the odd 4 or 5 quake here fairly frequently,” she said.

“We don’t need to worry about the kind of things (like) the superquake that is going to hit B.C., probably in our lifetime,” she said, adding public authorities there are well-prepared for that possibility.

Meanwhile, in Pembroke and Ottawa, west and east of Friday’s epicentre, windows and computers rattled in offices, floors rumbled underfoot coffees trembled in cups sitting on desks.

Ken Greenberg in Millbrook, Ont., 270 kms away from the epicentre, was taking a nap when the wall around him began shaking.

“It felt like I was sitting on a washing machine,” he said.

The quake was felt as far west as Sudbury, Ont., and as far south as London, Ont., with reports coming in east of Montreal and south into New York State and Vermont, according to the United States Geological Survey.